The Association for Hispanic Classical

Theater, Inc. Newsletter: January 2017

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Cordial greetings from the President and Board of Directors of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater! This issue of the newsletter includes information concerning the upcoming AHCT Symposium and the Chamizal play festival, and news on conferences and events of interest to Spanish Golden Age enthusiasts.

The 2017 International Siglo de Oro Drama Festival, Chamizal National Memorial Theater

The 42nd annual Siglo de Oro Festival at the Chamizal will take place Wednesday, April 19, through Saturday, April 22, 2017, with all shows beginning at 7:00 p.m. The Festival will feature:

The Heresy of Love, Wednesday, April 19, by The School of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University, directed by Robert Quinlan. The play brilliantly imagines the last year of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s life and her famous conflict with the Archbishop Aguijar y Seijas. It was first performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company and later in an acclaimed production at London’s Globe Theatre.

¿Qué con Quique Quinto?, Thursday, April 20, by Cabaret Misterio & Efe Tres Teatro, Mexico City, directed by Andrés Carreño. This play is a comical re-telling of Shakespeare’s Henry V in Spanish.

La reunión de los Zanni, Friday, April 21, by Compañía Teatro Reymala, Spain, directed by Adriano Iurissevich. A troupe of actors presents comical stories of love and deceit in the commedia dell’arte style.

El retablo de las maravillas, Saturday, April 22, by Miguel de Cervantes, performed by Morfeo Teatro, Spain, directed by

AHCT Board of Directors

Officers: Susan Paun de García, President

Denison University Gwyn E. Campbell, Acting Vice

President, Membership & Registration Washington & Lee University

Darci L. Strother, Vice President for the Annual Symposium

California State Univ., San Marcos Sharon Voros, Treasurer

U.S. Naval Academy Christopher D. Gascón, Secretary

SUNY Cortland

Board Members: Mindy Stivers Badía

Indiana University Southeast Robert Bayliss

University of Kansas Ian Borden

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film

Bruce R. Burningham Illinois State University

Harley Erdman University of Massachusetts Amherst

Esther Fernández Rice University

Mina García Elon University

Anthony Grubbs Michigan State University

Ben Gunter Florida State University

Valerie Hegstrom Brigham Young University

David Hildner University of Wisconsin-Madison

Glenda Nieto-Cuebas Ohio Wesleyan University

Yuri Porras Texas State University

Robert L. Turner III University of South Dakota

Laura L. Vidler University of South Dakota

Kerry Wilks Wichita State University

Amy R. Williamsen Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro

Jason Yancey Grand Valley State University

AHCT Founding Members

Donald T. Dietz Founder of AHCT

David Gitlitz University of Rhode Island

Matthew D. Stroud Trinity University

Vern Williamsen † University of Missouri, Columbia

AHCT Past Presidents

Donald T. Dietz, President Emeritus Bárbara Mujica, President Emerita

Robert Johnston, President Emeritus

¿Qué con Quique Quinto? Cabaret Misterio & Efe Tres Teatro. Photo courtesy of the Chamizal National Memorial.

La reunion de los Zanni. Photo courtesy of the Chamizal National Memorial.

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Francisco Negro. This adaptation of Cervantes’s famous satire also includes fragments of various other entremeses and prose works of the author, all of which come together to voice, in the director’s words, an “agrio discurso sobre la mediocridad de los gobernantes y la decadencia ética de la sociedad de su tiempo.”

Consult the Chamizal’s 2017 Siglo de Oro Festival web page at https://www.nps.gov/cham/planyourvisit/2017-siglo-festival.htm.

AHCT Symposium 2017 Plenary

Barbara Fuchs: Diversifying the classical canon. The 2017 Donald Dietz Keynote Speaker will be Professor Barbara Fuchs, UCLA, Director of the UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance and founder of Diversifying the Classics, a project working to foster the awareness and appreciation of Hispanic classical theater in Los Angeles and beyond. Although academia and the arts are generally committed to diversity, classical theater seems to have made relatively little progress in this regard. Fuchs makes the case for Hispanic classical theater as a site of inclusion. http://diversifyingtheclassics.humanities.ucla.edu/.

Happenings Walker McMillan Reid, February 17, 1929 – November 28, 2016. It is with great sadness that the AHCT bids farewell to Walker Reid, one of the founders and most ardent supporters of the Chamizal National Memorial’s Siglo de Oro Drama Festival. Walker graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Speech and Drama, served his country as a U.S. Army Lieutenant in the Korean War, and earned a degree in acting from the American Theatre Wing in New York City. He lived in Guatemala for a time, working to bring potable water to mountain villages and founding the Community Theater of Guatemala. He served as Cultural Affairs Director at the Chamizal from 1974 to 1993 and was instrumental in establishing the Golden Age play festival in 1976. Although he will be greatly missed, his enthusiasm for Hispanic classical theater will endure at every performance of the Chamizal festival, as we echo his request to the audience: “¡Favor de divertirse!”

Calderón’s Two Dreams. La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, in association with Magis Theatre Company, will present Calderon's Two Dreams, a repertory performance of two classic works by Pedro Calderon de la Barca in English. The off-Broadway show will feature both Calderón’s well-known 1635 comedia, Life Is a Dream, and his lesser-known 1677 auto-sacramental of the same title. Directed by George Drance, Alex Randrup and Kelly Johnston, performances will run from February 9–26, 2017, at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street, New York. For show times and tickets go to: http://lamama.org/two_dreams/.

The Comediantes Banquet took place Saturday, January 7, at Bistro 7 in Philadelphia, site of the 2017 MLA convention. The AHCT in collaboration with GEMELA sponsored a wonderful evening of delicious dining and delightful company for Golden Age enthusiasts. Thanks go to Amy Williamsen and

Calderón’s Two Dreams, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and Magis Theatre Company. Poster courtesy of Allison Astor-Vargas.

Walker Reid, 1929-2016. Photo and biography courtesy of Walker Reid’s family and Cress Funeral Home, Madison, Wisconsin.

El retablo de la maravillas, Morfeo Teatro. Photo courtesy of the Chamizal National Memorial.

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Stacey Schlau for organizing the dinner and reviving a wonderful tradition. Look for announcements for next year’s banquet in New York; it is sure to be a memorable event! Call for Papers: Marginality in Iberian Theater. This is a special session of the 2018 Modern Language Association Conference, New York, NY. Proposals should address the topic of marginality in Iberian drama and performance from the 16th to the 21st centuries. Please submit 250 word abstracts by 1 March 2017 to Esther Fernández (esther.fernandez@rice.edu) and David Rodríguez-Solás (dsolas@umass.edu). AITENSO 2017: El personaje dramático aurisecular en su discurso. La Asociación Internacional de Teatro Español y Novohispano de los Siglos de Oro en colaboración con la Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México y El Colegio de México convocan al XVIII Congreso de la AITENSO, México, D.F., 23–27 octubre 2017. La fecha límite para propuestas de comunicación (500 palabras) es el 31 de marzo de 2017. La duración de las ponencias será de 20 minutos. Para más información, véase http://www.aitenso.net/Mex1.pdf. Se puede enviar propuestas a: aitenso.congreso2017@gmail.com y P27916@correo.uia.mx.

Theater with a Mission presents “A Historic Indian/Spanish Wedding.” Spanish La Florida: the war-torn year of 1703. Spanish missions are under attack by English-speaking Europeans to the north and non-Christian Natives to the west. So the Spanish soldiers and the Christian Indians who live at Mission San Luis are fighting back – by getting married! Theater with a Mission cordially invites you to a Historic Indian/Spanish Wedding on Sunday, February 12, 2017, 2 p.m., at Mission San Luis, 2100 West Tennessee St., Tallahassee, FL. This dramatic reconstruction of real life in Spanish Florida lets you join in the wedding procession, participate in the ceremony, and dance at the newlyweds’ fiesta, featuring songs from the 1600s, a toast from the Quijote, and a performance of Cervantes’s El retablo de las maravillas. Visit the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheaterWithAMission/ for complete details, and view a preview of this historical re-enactment at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnaM3WWxAk&feature=youtu.be.

Reminders

Comedia Performance, AHCT’s annual journal, publishes articles on topics related to the performance of the Spanish comedia. The subscription price is included in the annual AHCT membership dues. A 3-year library subscription is $75; individual copies are $20 each. Checks should be made out to AHCT and sent to Managing Editor Dr. Tania de Miguel Magro, Dept. of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, P.O. Box 6298, 216 Chitwood Hall, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6298. Send direct e-mail inquiries to: tania.demiguelmagro@mail.wvu.edu. Submissions are due by September 30. Please follow the guidelines at the front of the journal. Submit articles to the editor, and book reviews, theater reviews, and interviews to the editors of each of those sections (see www.comediaperformance.org). Comedia Performance also advertises books published within the last five years, performances, study-abroad programs, and conferences. Ads are $100 for a full page; send camera-ready ads to Barbara Mujica at: mujica@georgetown.edu.

Benefits of AHCT membership. You can renew your membership easily at http://www.comedias.org/AHCT/AHCT/Membership.html. Members of AHCT whose dues are up-to-date may borrow or stream videos from the archive of performances of Golden Age plays, receive the Association’s annual journal, Comedia Performance, and access the semiannual AHCT Newsletter.

To update your member profile, please access your file via your username and password, and update your record at http://ahct.echapters.com/. If your email address has changed, you may re-subscribe to the listserv at: http://mail.comedias.org/mailman/listinfo/comedias_comedias.org.

“A Historic Indian/Spanish Wedding.” Photo courtesy of Rob Blount, Ben Gunter, and Mission San Luis, Tallahassee, FL.

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The AHCT Annual Spanish Golden Age Theater Symposium April 20–22, 2017, Hilton Garden Inn, El Paso, TX

The dates of the symposium coincide with the Siglo de Oro Spanish Theater Festival at the Chamizal National Memorial, April 19–22, 2017. Sessions will begin Thursday morning, April 20, and end Saturday afternoon, April 22. The meeting of the officers of the AHCT will take place Wednesday, April 19, from 9:00 a.m.–12 noon, with the meeting of the Board of Directors to follow, from 1:30–5:00 p.m.

Hotel Reservations. The Symposium will once again take place at the Hilton Garden Inn El Paso/ University, 111 West University Avenue, El Paso, 79902. A special conference rate of $115 is available to participants that reserve by March 16, 2017; the rate applies to single/double/triple/quad rooms, and includes a hot buffet breakfast for up to two people per room (request breakfast coupons at reception desk upon check-in). All rates are subject to a 17.5% tax. Parking is complimentary. The group rate applies Sunday, April 16 through Saturday, April 22, 2017. Reservations may be made online at www.elpaso.stayhgi.com (the group rate code is “AHCT”), or by calling the hotel directly at 1-915-351-2121.

AHCT Conference Registration. You must be a member of the AHCT to register for the conference. Current membership dues are $65 (or $120 for two years) for faculty and $55 (or $100 for two years) for retired members and students. The registration fee for the conference for all faculty attendees as well as for graduate students who are reading papers or participating in a special session is $125. A late fee of $50 is assessed if registration is paid after March 9, 2017; if registration is not paid in full by March 23, 2017, the participant will be dropped from the program. Registration includes conference attendance, the AHCT annual banquet, transportation to and from the Chamizal Wednesday through Saturday evenings for the Drama Festival, and the Friday evening post-performance reception. (Note: a special registration rate of $40 applies to students who do not present papers or attend the banquet. An additional $25 payable at the time of registration purchases tickets for the banquet. The aforementioned late fee also applies to auditor registration.) Registration fees and dues can be paid by way of PayPal on the 2017 El Paso conference webpage.

Conference Updates. Further details regarding the symposium will appear on the 2017 conference page on the AHCT website as they become available. For special inquiries, please contact the AHCT Conference Director, Darci Strother, at strother@csusm.edu.

With best wishes for the new year, Chris Gascón AHCT Recording Secretary christopher.gascon@cortland.edu